Qualifying Offer for Offers

West Valley City, Utah -- Utah Grizzlies Head Coach and Director of Hockey Operations Jason Christie today announced that he has issued qualifying offers to eight players from the 2007-2008 season, including former Dartmouth defenseman Sean Offers. 

Offers played in 60 regular season games tallying 2 goals and 19 assists in 07-08.

Qualifying Offer Information

Each team was entitled to reserve Rights to a maximum of eight (8) Qualified Players. Of these eight (8) Qualified Players, no more than four (4) of the Qualified Players shall be Veterans (260 regular season professional hockey games played as of the start of the upcoming 2008-09 season).

Players will have until August 1 to accept a qualifying offer.

Players on open Qualifying Offers cannot be traded.

Teams were not required to protect players who signed a Standard Players Contract prior to July 1.

Teams are not allowed to sign more than 24 players to contracts during the summer.

Players that were not signed by July 1 or extended a qualifying offer by July 1 become unrestricted free agents.

A Member extending a valid Qualifying Offer to a Veteran retains the Rights to that Veteran until August 1. After August 1, if the Veteran is not signed to a Standard Player Contract by the Member, the Veteran shall be deemed a Restricted Free Agent and shall be entitled to seek and secure offers of employment from other Members. Restricted Free Agents may not be traded.

When a Restricted Free Agent receives an offer to sign a Standard Player Contract from an Offering Member other than the Member with Rights and the Restricted Free Agent desires to accept the Offer, the Restricted Free Agent and the Offering Member must, within 24 hours, deliver a completed Offer Sheet to the Member with Rights, the League Office and the PHPA. The Member with Rights shall then have seven (7) days after the date it receives the Offer Sheet to exercise its Right to Match. The Right to Match shall expire seven (7) days from the date the Offer Sheet was received but not counting the day of receipt.

If a Restricted Free Agent is not signed to either an Offer Sheet or a Standard Player Contract by a Member by August 31, he shall be deemed an Unrestricted Free Agent.

The Grizzlies open the 2008-2009 season Saturday, October 18 at Idaho. The home opening weekend for Utah is Friday and Saturday, October 24 and 25 versus Alaska at the E-Center.

The ECHL will have 23 teams in 16 states and British Columbia playing 828 games from Oct. 17, 2008 to Apr. 4, 2009. Eighteen of the 23 teams have played at least five years in their current city.

The third-longest tenured professional hockey league behind only the National Hockey League and the American Hockey League, the ECHL averaged 4,174 per game last season, marking the fourth year in row and the 16th time in the last 18 years that the league has averaged over 4,000 fans. The league has drawn over four million fans each of the last five years and 11 times in the past 12 seasons.